1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to Digital Rights Management (DRM), and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for providing a DRM service in a user terminal regardless of a DRM system type.
2. Description of the Related Art
Methods for distributing digital contents to user terminals, such as televisions, computers, and portable devices, have become one of the biggest issues in the current digital age.
A DRM service refers to technology that continuously manages and protects intellectual property rights of digital contents by using an encryption technique. Specifically, the DRM service safely transfers various contents from a Content Provider (CP) to a user and prevents the user from illegally distributing the contents. Such DRM technology can protect information during processes of creating, distributing, using, and discarding the digital contents, and can protect the use according to a user's authority and the rights of the user.
In order to use content to which the DRM technology is applied (hereinafter, referred to as a “DRM content”), the user terminal first accesses a system that provides the corresponding DRM content in order to download the DRM content, meta data for the DRM content, and a license. The meta data refers to data storing information on the DRM content, and the license refers to data indicating a decryption key used for decrypting encrypted DRM content and a content access right (e.g., the number of times, a period, etc.). Once the DRM content and the license are stored through such a process, the user terminal can use the corresponding DRM content. Accordingly, the user terminal should be equipped with a DRM agent capable of executing a corresponding DRM solution in order to use the DRM content.
There are various types of DRM systems and Conditional Access (CA) systems in the market. For example, the types of systems include an Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) DRM system, a marlin DRM system, a widevine DRM system. Such DRM systems are similar in that they provide digital content after encrypting the corresponding digital content and providing an access right for the corresponding digital content. Specifically, the DRM systems are similar in that they use the license, but they differ in a format or a language used to express the license and also differ in a message format used for executing the DRM service. Accordingly, when a DRM system used by the service provider providing the DRM content is different from a DRM system supported by the user terminal, an interoperability problem may occur.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an interoperability problem. FIG. 1 illustrates a DRM A system 20, a DRM B system 30, and a DRM C system 40, which correspond to different types of DRM systems, on a DRM solution market. An Internet Protocol Television (IP TV) providing apparatus 10, corresponding to the service provider, uses the DRM A system 20. Further, an IP TV terminal A 50 and an IP TV terminal B 60, corresponding to user terminals, are equipped with a solution of the DRM A system 20 and a solution of the DRM C system 40, respectively.
The IP TV terminal A 50 can receive an IP TV service from the IP TV providing apparatus 10, but the IP TV terminal B 60 cannot receive the IP TV service from the IP TV providing apparatus 10.
Accordingly, when the user purchases a user terminal simply according to a user's preference, the user may not receive a service through access to the service provider.
A method of downloading a DRM solution required by the user terminal may be used to solve the above-described problem. In this method, the user terminal downloads and installs software components of a DRM system used for content protection.
However, the method requires that the safety of a higher level, implemented in a hardware level, be ensured. Further, since conventional DRM systems and CA systems are generally not designed to perform a downloading operation, there is complexity in implementation.
As another solution to solve the above-described problem, a method may be provided to force the service provider into simultaneously supporting a plurality of DRM systems. The user can select and purchase a user terminal supporting one DRM system from the plurality of DRM systems. However, this method may act as overhead to the service provider.